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SEO Principles and Traditional Writing Parallels

Creating good content for the web is not the same as writing a whitepaper or a research thesis, however, basic principles apply:

Title: you want an attention grabbing title, appropriate for your target audience, that communicates exactly what your content is about. In SEO, this is goes in <title> tags. It is also the main title <h1> of your content. No point to make these different – it would only confuse the readers.

The abstract: you need to grab the reader immediately, with a short summary of what your content is all about. In SEO the abstract becomes the meta description tag.

Introduction: find the hook, make your audience curious and provide the background for your content. In SEO this happens on the landing page, and it is the first paragraph your readers can see, right under the title.

Details: the same in SEO and other works, this is the full body of your content, where you explain thoroughly your ideas, and solutions. Always remember your audience and use appropriate language and level of detail.

Benefits: self explanatory; describe the benefits for the reader, explaining how your product, or idea, can be beneficial for her. In SEO, this is usually a bullet list.

Conclusion: same in SEO and other works; the part where you emphasize both the benefits of your product, as well as the risk to readers who decide not to use your product.

Call to action: something usually left out of white papers; yet a must with SEO. Many readers skip all the text to read the last part of the document. This is where you tell the readers what you want them to do and how to do it.